Is Compton Development Dying?

[ghost]

I remember at one point Compton development looked like it was on the move, now that doesn't seem to be the case.

With the Linux world moving as fast as it does, I don't see Compton staying at the pace it needs...

There are so many issues here on Github, and it's sad, because Compton is such a great app.

Will Compton development pick up and also stay moving?

There have only been 2 beta releases going back a little over 2 years ago.

Compton development is sorely needed, and some really good final releases happening,

I really hope this project will really come to life, because when it comes to nice light weight composite mangers, there aren't any choices....

[agaida]

you will find some requests for releases or release tags in the bugtracker - unfortunally the developers are to busy, unwilling or not interested in. Or the development in the past few years is simply not releaseworthy - that might be the case. But if it's the case it would leave a question open: Few years without any releaseworthy stuff? Why the hell should one rely on compton? No development in years is called stable. And stable is only another word for dead!

Yes, it might sound harsh and not very friendly. To be true, it is meant to be harsh and not friendly.

Manchmal frag ich mich, was daran so schwer ist: git tag $foo-$bar (add some options and numbers at wish)

[ghost]

I appreciate the reply, but you're not telling anything someone might not already guess at.

I use compton and like it very much, I only use small window managers, so compton is great. No compiz for me please, to much bloat and crap. So I guess you could say I rely on compton.

releaseworthy, who relies on compton, stable is dead, LOL, you have a funny way with your words for development, and I'm geek enough to know how it all works, I was hoping from some input from richardgv himself, not just talk about what we all might think could be the reasons...

I certainly still run into issues from time to time, and know there is certainly room for fixes and improvement with compton...

[agaida]

improvements have to reach the user finally. and not every user is able to build compton himself. it seems that there is a more or less current ppa for ubuntu (with a new number). In other words: We care only about the minority of ubuntu users that are using ppa's - thats all.

[ghost]

You're not making sense...

Improvements reach the user?

Also compiling compton as a end-user doesn't fix bugs, so what does compiling have to do with anything?

Canonical maintainers update compton issues on their end as far as I understand it, unlress richardgv is doing something for Ubuntu.

Sorry caring for a minority of ubuntu users sounds really stupid, since the majority of Ubuntu users are running Unity with compiz.

Do you do any development on this compton project?

Are you being real here? This seems like trolling to me, hmm...

[msteinbeck]

Why the hell should one rely on compton

I really like to combine i3wm with compton. It's a very great combination. Furthermore, having a standalone compositor fits very well into the GNU philosophy of having a single application for a single task.

[richardgv]

I remember at one point Compton development looked like it was on the move, now that doesn't seem to be the case.

With the Linux world moving as fast as it does, I don't see Compton staying at the pace it needs...

There are so many issues here on Github, and it's sad, because Compton is such a great app.

Will Compton development pick up and also stay moving?

Well, thanks for keeping your interests in compton after years of lack of maintenance, but I am afraid I am going to disappoint you, at least partially: The development will never be as fast as it used to be (during late 2012 and early 2013). The primary reason is I found facing a huge amount of open bugs a dreadful task, and another one is now I have quite some overtime, and have troubles maintaining sufficient sleep. I will try to do something, but don't expect too much.

And, I would be glad if somebody else is willing to maintain compton.

There have only been 2 beta releases going back a little over 2 years ago.

Compton development is sorely needed, and some really good final releases happening,

I explained for more than once why there is not a release (see #300, for example). Well, let me take care of the bugs, and satisfy the users building from the git tree first.

I would say its marvelous that compton still functions correctly on my system with 2+ years of lack of proper maintenance, by the way.

[msteinbeck]

@richardgv Thanks for clarification.

I would say its marvelous that compton still functions correctly on my system with 2+ years of lack of proper maintenance, by the way.

Agreed, Compton seems to be very stable for daily use, though, 121 issues are reported on Github. Nonetheless, the lack of proper maintenance may overcome Compton at some day making it incompatible with other software systems.

[ghost]

@richardgv

Hello and thanks for taking the time to reply.

I'm glad to hear there will be some development in the future, and sorry to hear about your sleeping, take care of yourself!

Compton has been running great for me all these years, I've never had many issues at all with it.

But there is one thing I'm running into when using it and the latest VirtualBox 5x, it makes VirtualBox slow to load, then it causes it to flcker on the desktop as it's opening.

I can report a new issue if you'd like?

I reported this here;

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/14701

Thanks again for your time richardgv, it's greatly appreciated and so is compton. Be well!

[kelleyk]

@richardgv

I'm not sure I can satisfy everyone who has reported an issue with compton, but I would be happy to put in some work as a maintainer. My email address is (my GitHub handle)@(my GitHub handle).net if you would like to get in touch.

[richardgv]

@retuxx:

Agreed, Compton seems to be very stable for daily use, though, 121 issues are reported on Github. Nonetheless, the lack of proper maintenance may overcome Compton at some day making it incompatible with other software systems.

Indeed.

@Geyup:

I'm glad to hear there will be some development in the future, and sorry to hear about your sleeping, take care of yourself!

Compton has been running great for me all these years, I've never had many issues at all with it.

Thanks!

But there is one thing I'm running into when using it and the latest VirtualBox 5x, it makes VirtualBox slow to load, then it causes it to flcker on the desktop as it's opening.

I can report a new issue if you'd like?

Please open a new issue on compton for it, and include your compton configuration.

I could not reproduce it here, with VirtualBox 5.0.16, and the issue itself feels odd: It does not seem reasonable that compton could slow down the start of an application.

A few things to check:

• I suppose you are already using the latest version of compton from the git tree?
• Does it occur when you open the "Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager" window, or boot a virtual machine?
• What happens if you kill compton during the 5-10 seconds for VirtualBox to start?
• Do other Qt applications exhibit similar problems?
• Have you tried switching between the different backends of compton?

@kelleyk:

I'm not sure I can satisfy everyone who has reported an issue with compton, but I would be happy to put in some work as a maintainer.

Ah, thank you! Let me evaluate this on the weekend, if I don't have too much overtime on the weekend...

[ghost]

@richardgv

A new version of Slackware is on it's way, and maybe once I change over to that it won't be affected.

But if you still want I can submit a report.

I haven't updated from the latest git tree for at least 8mos to a year for compton. So I can update it and try that too.

This happens when I first start the app VirtualBox.

I never killed compton during the start of VirtualBox, so I can see what it does.

This is the only app this has happened on.

I only ran this on; backend = "glx";

[richardgv]

@Geyup:

A new version of Slackware is on it's way, and maybe once I change over to that it won't be affected.

Okay. Feel free to test with the new Slackware version first.

[AaronBottegal]

I would say it's dying because everyone wants to get onto the Wayland train and eliminate the need for compton.

[CamilleScholtz]

I would say it's dying because everyone wants to get onto the Wayland train and eliminate the need for comptom.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people (including me) won't eny time soon, because A, half of the programs will still run through xwayland and B, because of waylands paranoid security nice tools like xdotool, wmctrl, scrot, or what have you won't work.

[ghost]

@richardgv ok...

It's at RC1 right now...

[ghost]

@richardgv same problem in Slackware 14.2

When I start any version of Virtualbox 5x the entire desktop flickers. If I disable compton or create a rule to remove the shadow it doesn't flicker.

I'll re report this in https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/317

I hope this is something maybe in my config I can change, or something you can fix...

[ghost]

I went back reading over everything, and I do understand problems and life get in the way, but not one single commit in almost a year, sad... :(

How many people work on this project?

There's no way to have a few commits a month to keep this going?

Hmm kelleyk said he'd lend a hand, so maybe someone new to come onboard to help?

Any hope soon for something?

Thank you all

[kelleyk]

I'm still willing to maintain compton, but at the moment (without interaction with the existing maintainers) I'd have to fork it and then maintain the fork.

[Brottweiler]

@kelleyk why is forking it a problem? You can fork it, call it something else and work with that.

[kelleyk]

It's not a problem per se, but it's not the best possible solution; it would mean that all of a sudden there'd be two communities, two issue trackers, etc.

There's also the fact that compton has been fairly reliable for me for a while; other than tagging a new release, what would be different about the fork? Let me take a peek through the open issues and pull requests and see if there's anything interesting in there.

[Brottweiler]

Well, compton forked xcompmgr... but I think you are right, if compton was active, but it is not active. You could also contribute to compton via pull requests, but I don't know how active the devs are to even check those?

[agaida]

@kelleyk - one possible solution would be to create a organisation, maybe compton-compositor, fork the repo and open the organisation to intrested people with the needed knowledge and time - the even better solution would be: create a such an organisation an take over the project friendly with bugtracker and all such things and avoid a split of the communities. This would be perfect, but all parties have to agree to such a move. Especially the current owner.

[ghost]

@kelleyk I'm either getting dense, or old, because I could not understand what that address is you left here to be in contact with, maybe a change of that simplified might help...

Compton isn't active, so a fork would be great, call it another name of your own, and don't worry about two communities.

Fork it into your own version if you can, and improve on it! :)

It's Opensource, so make your own!

[kelleyk]

Any ideas? kompton?

[msteinbeck]

Names starting with a k usually suggest an affiliation to the KDE project.

[smlx]

I don't think a fork is required if @richardgv has already said he is open to adding @kelleyk as a maintainer to this existing github project. I don't know if @chjj has any thoughts about this?

[ghost]

Oh no, not kompton, like smix said, sounds like a KDE project.

Where did the name compton even come from? Maybe understanding that will give an idea for a new name, if you want it...

[Brottweiler]

@Geyup My guess is the "comp" is from that it is a composite manager, like xcompmgr and compiz, and then maybe also inspired from Compton, California.

[kelleyk]

The conversation about becoming a maintainer here never went anywhere.

Sounds like kompton is a bad idea. On a more important note, what should be the short-term priorities of a fork (apart from e.g. tagging a new release)? What outstanding bugs or feature requests should get short-term attention?

[agaida]

only one question - has anybody tried to talk to @chjj about a possible organisation?

[ghost]

I see since creating this post, there has been 2 commits, so I'm glad to see some progress being made.

@kelleyk I thought you also wanted to just come onboard to help out?

So if anyone is going to help out, I hope we can make this happen soon, there is a lot of work compton needs, heaps of bug reports to fix.

[licaon-kter]

I've switched to this fork for some fixes https://github.com/garnetius/compton/commits/

Hopefully they'll get merged here too.

[ghost]

@licaon-kter I see it says;

This branch is 6 commits ahead, 4 commits behind chjj:master.

But just looking at it, it doesn't seem to be ahead...

@kelleyk this is opensource, so why don't you just grab the code and make some commits at least to help out?

[ghost]

I don't know if it's me or what, but a compositor does seem a somewhat serious matter needed for Linux.

I'm not using this for eye candy, sure the shadows around the windows look prettier, but in Openbox it helps things run smoother.

Without it, I see some slight tearing, or a rippling effect when opening, closing, or max. or minimise windows.

The shadows for me also give some contrast to the desktop, which makes it easier on the eyes, at least for me it does.

Overall I see this as something that makes using the desktop better on the eyes, a better flow of performance, and not just candy.

We really need this to stay alive and get some of these bugs squashed, to many bug reports out there.

[licaon-kter]

This branch is 6 commits ahead, 4 commits behind chjj:master.

6 commits with fixes vs 4 commits with typo fixes? Look again.

[ghost]

My bad, wish it was more active, only 6 commits in 5 months... :(

@licaon-kter by the way, are you using this fork, wondering from someone how well it's working?

[licaon-kter]

That fork, yes, no issues here, but that might vary.

[ghost]

Great, I'm gonna give it a go, thanks...

[ghost]

Ahh already have a problem with the fork :(

https://github.com/garnetius/compton/issues/3

[ghost]

Looks like the discussuion of keeping compton alive is dying along the side of the road... :(

[gothmog123]

Sorry, I was wondering, is it safe to keep using compton as long as it works?

[Hi-Angel]

Ah, thank you! Let me evaluate this on the weekend, if I don't have too much overtime on the weekend...

@richardgv just to make it clear, are you talking about the upcoming weekend, or the next one?

[Brottweiler]

@Hi-Angel uhm... that was posted 2 years ago

[Hi-Angel]

@Hi-Angel uhm... that was posted 2 years ago

No way, are you saying he evaluates someone to, at least, review those 17 pull requests, for 2 years already?? It's a joke, right, you must be joking?

[Brottweiler]

There is a maintenance fork over at yshui/compton. The owner will "merge pull requests as they appear upstream, and fix bugs reported and found by myself".